D&D 4E Eberron: The Artificer in 4e...

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

WotC's CharOp board is a funny place. Let's not go there.

But don't you want to have fun?



I think something like arcane leader is a good way to go, though it's "funny", since we also (probably) have the Bard as as "arcane leader", and they both are totally not alike. Which would be nice, though...

The alternative would be to have a "magitech" or "construction" power source. But then, you might want more then just one class of that source. And where would this lead us? Warforged Mechwarriors?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

By that arguement, the Warlock's Curse and Ranger's Quarry make them Leaders, too.

The Warlock's curse or the Rangers Quarry cannot be used to buff others.
That is an important difference.

A further factor would be that buffing others should probably be a little more effective for the artificiers group then him buffing himself.

 

[Larrin]

I like the idea of an artifacer being a Leader that buffs characters by buffing their equipement, it captures the 'infusions' fairly well. Item cration has yet to be seen in general, so that area is just as dark for the artifacer as any class, we can just assume he'll likely do it better. The one thing the i wonder about is what his "attacks" will be like (since a leaders abilities seem to trigger off attacks a lot). Will he use a crossbow, a wand, or a gizmo? Will his attacks be spell-like blasts or augemented weapons? I have a hard time seeing what they might do with this....

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I hope it goes away or is severely reinvisioned

I liked the flavor of the artificer, but really hated the mechanics.

It relied on exploiting edge cases in poorly-defined areas of the rules (can I make an item that gives me +10 to UMD?)

It was essentially underpowered or overpowered depending on the nature of the adventure (how much advance info on our fight is possible) and the ability of the player to minmax and read the Wizards CharOp board.

I never played one, because it was obvious that it would bring out my worst powergamer instincts and I would dominate the game.


Ken

 

[LightPhoenix]

There's all this talk of Artificers being rediculously powerful, and yet it was all because of things thatmay not even be in this game. I highly doubt WotC is so incompetant that they wouldn't fix blatant misuses of the class to bring it back in line with the original concept, which is very clearly a Leader.

I suspect the class will be something along the lines of what Stalker0 wrote, where imbuing properties is no longer tied to money, except possibly through rituals.

 

[lbporter]

... fix blatant misuses of the class to bring it back in line with the original concept, which is very clearly a Leader.

I have to disagree with you, not that WotC is Incompitent, I have always been impressed with that, but the Artificer is one of the most versitile classes in the game, I have laways seen them as controlers, but I have played them as all of the rolls mentioned in 4e. a Warforged Artificer is one tough guy, and the wand use is what make all of the other rolls possible.

Without the one spell per wand mechanic, the artificer could become any number of things. I believe that the artificer could be the first class to bridge rolls, probably Leader/Controler. WotC has said when asked about multi-roll classes "not yet." Or perhapse there will be a path for each roll in the class, chose whiich ever you want, but feel free to choose powers that are more in line with other paths, but I think that is probably too much choice and design work for one class (as they would probabliy need at least200% of the powers of the other classes.)

Luke

 

[Sadrik]

In my current game we have a warforged artificer. He is definitely a Leader and Arcane.

Here is my little rant on this: He deals with magic items crafting, repairing and figuring out magic items. Without having played with one before I thought they were sort of a "tech" like class but they are alas not, much to my chagrin. They are simply magic item guys that can deal with traps. This is an integral part of the Eberron shtick, they are why their are so many magic items in Eberron. If they wind up being anything else than an Arcane Leader, they will be short changing the legacy of Eberron. Their "spells" called "infusions" just boost, enhance and repair magical objects/items/things.

Now for my rant on Warforged <please skip now> (I needed an outlet...) Warforged are ridiculously powered. They are immune to everything. And have nearly no draw backs. They can still be healed at half rate with cures and are immune to almost every condition thrown at us. From the top of my head: fatigue, exhaustion, level drain, paralysis, poison, sleep, nausea, disease, sickened, with no need to sleep, breathe, or eat, and has +2 natural armor, light fortification magic item ability a slam attack and at the cost of a mere feat they get adamantine full plate with DR 3/-. With very little drawback, they easily upstage other races. Things that we thought would be cool to limit them is that they are loud, sort of like a steam engine, have a smoke stack, need to power themselves with something some special material like coal or steam or something and could even be magic "batteries"- this would be their "food" you know the stuff regular adventurers have to carry around. Also, a shutoff switch or "sleep" mode, so that they don't expend their "food". The Tin-Man didn't like water and the Warforged shouldn't either, they should have to dry themselves and try not to submerge themselves so that they don't get rusty or "corroded", of which corroded should be a "condition" that only they can get, in fact they should have several conditions that only they can get- so that all those immunities are fine but they have their own list.

 

[Grymar]

Sadrik - sliding further off topic here...what you seem to want is a steampunk warforged, which would be cool but isn't at all what the warforged are. Consider that most of their body is made of wood, with minor bits of added metal and stone as armor. They are closer to ents than the tinman.

Although you will get no argument from me that they are worth a +1LA.

 

[Sadrik]

Sadrik - sliding further off topic here...what you seem to want is a steampunk warforged, which would be cool but isn't at all what the warforged are. Consider that most of their body is made of wood, with minor bits of added metal and stone as armor. They are closer to ents than the tinman.

Although you will get no argument from me that they are worth a +1LA.

Ok, ents with a lot of iron components! They still should have to worry about getting wet and lest they "corrode" their bodies. And I think the magical "batteries" would fit without being too tied to steampunk. It would mechanically give them a reason to go into a "sleep" mode and a reason to have to buy "food" just like the best of them. Of course not to many DM's deal with food, but, at the least they would need to power down at night.

Back to the Artificer- Having UMD can make someone fill every "role"- that means that every warlock and every rogue and bard can also fill every "role" too? I think when you don't consider UMD they are obviously Arcane Leaders.

 

[Sadrik]

Oh and one cheesey artificer thing that our player is always trying to exploit is that he can absorb magic items and add the XP to his craft pool. Any magical traps that were created by a craft feat he can absorb the XP from the "item". Any revision, on this class should watch out for things like this.

Oh yeah and my Warforged, Warlock/Warlord has a really cool warhorse!